PRIVATE WEALTH - December/January 2007/2008 Issue
Amazing Grace - By
Russ Alan Prince - 12/1/2007
Russ Alan Prince
Russ is an editor of Private Wealth magazine and the president of Prince & Associates, Inc., the leading market research firm specializing in private wealth. He is a highly sought consultant to the ultra-high-net-worth and elite advisors and originated the use of high-net-worth psychology in the financial services sector. He is the author of more than 40 books on private wealth and is frequently cited as an expert in the national and international press.
View all articles by Russ Alan Prince
When
Grace enters a room, she captures everyone's attention. Tall and
slender, Grace has long, ebony hair and sea green eyes on an oval,
ageless face. By all accounts she's pretty, if not stunning.
There
are numerous reasons why Grace Wu is considered amazing. Beauty aside,
she's a math prodigy, an accomplished violinist, a third-degree black
belt in Dim-Mak, and piercingly, frighteningly smart-with an IQ well
north of 200. Those things notwithstanding, it was the performance of
the US$2 billion hedge fund she singularly owns and manages that led
her to be dubbed Amazing Grace. In the six years of the fund's existence, it has never delivered less then 15% annually.
NONE
OF THIS WOULD BE CONSIDERED EXTRAORDINARY IF IT WEREN'T FOR THE FACT
THAT GRACE RUNS HER HEDGE FUND FROM A CONVERTED 757 COMPLETE WITH ITS
OWN "TRADING FLOOR" AND EROTIC PLAYGROUND.
Grace's fund
focuses principally on currency transactions. While she employs a team
of four traders, she directs the overall strategy and personally
conducts most of the trading. All profits are siphoned off at regular
intervals so the hedge fund never exceeds its US$2 billion ceiling.
Grace doesn't charge a management fee and receives 10% of the profits-a
fire sale compared with the expense structures of many hedge funds. The
hedge fund has only five investors-all single or multifamily
offices-and her founding investor accounts for half the fund's capital.
None of this would be considered extraordinary if it weren't for the
fact that Grace runs her hedge fund from a converted 757 complete with
its own "trading floor" and erotic playground.
The unconventional
office coupled with a nearly ceaseless travel schedule help Grace
maintain her tax status as a "perpetual tourist," circumstances that
have helped her become exceptionally wealthy in just a half dozen
years. Grace will readily admit to enjoying her wealth, religiously
donating millions to her favorite charities and spending many millions
more on jewels, fine art, a jet, mansions throughout the world, couture
and custom-made clothing, a small private island-and a select few men
of note.
Grace attributes much of her financial success to her
mastery of the Art of Memory. Through it she has constructed a Memory
Palace that, according to her, includes every meaningful geopolitical
and financial interaction that impacts the five currencies she trades.
A
Memory Palace is a mnemonic technique originating with the ancient
Greeks, commonly used by the leading alchemists of the Middle Ages and
quite popular among Gnostics. It takes the form of a building replete
with rooms, passages (even secret passages), niches, alcoves and the
associated architectural details. The idea is to "walk" through the
Memory Palace and connect with desired information on an as needed
basis. The images in a Memory Palace are intentionally emotional so
they are easily remembered. In Grace's case, sexually surrealistic
images populate her Memory Palace.
Grace professes that her
Memory Palace is more then a database of events, facts and figures. For
her, it's a continuously operating cognitive computer running "what-if"
simulations. Based on the results of these simulations, Grace takes
currency positions with-to date-amazing results.
